Maria decided to change tactics.
“You seem to know a lot about this…thing that can’t be named. But how? I mean, if all of our history books and religious texts are wrong, then how can you be sure you’ve got the right information?”
“Because of my source. Yes, over the centuries, a lot of people have got it wrong. The Celts, for example, believed this creature was a deity from their pantheon. That’s because the entity tricked them into thinking so. It can shift shapes, appearing as anything it wants. Quite often, it takes the form of things we fear, long for, or regret. As I said, it feeds off our energy. Quite often, it is our fears that generate the biggest amount of energy.”
“But you said it feeds off all living things. So what does it appear as to a tree or a flower? They don’t know fear.”
“Sure they do. A tree fears the roar of a chainsaw or the crackle of flame. A flower fears the hum of a lawn mower or the voice of a young man intent on picking it for his girlfriend.” Maria stared at him, speechless.
“It doesn’t always use that attack, however. It can appear as a benevolent being—a friend or parent or lost love. It appeared to the Celts as a human male with a silver arm replacing its original arm, which had supposedly been lost in battle. It appeared to others as an old man carrying a great wooden staff in one hand, and riding in a seashell chariot drawn by flaming beasts. Again, this was a falsehood. Historians have misidentified it. Archeologists, too—attributing ruins and sites to its name, even though the things worshipped there were far different. Fiction writers like Arthur Machen and H. P. Lovecraft have added to the confusion over the years. One of them even labeled the entity as the Lord of the Great Deep, which is actually Leviathan’s post. In reality, there’s only one, true source of information on this thing—and the rest of the Thirteen. It’s the only source I trust.”
“Let me guess,” Maria said. “You hear the voice of God?”
“Please don’t tease me. This is a very serious matter. My source is something called the Daemonolateria.”
“You know Latin?”
“It’s not Latin. I know it sounds like it, but the word is from a language not spoken on this planet. The Daemonolateria is sort of a book, although it’s unlike any other book you’ve ever heard of. There are different versions; each copy is unique. Some of it exists on this plane of reality. Other parts exist…elsewhere. Its contents can change, depending on the own er and translation, but much of it deals with all of this forgotten history. It contains methods of stopping or banishing the Thirteen, including the thing we face.”
“Sounds awfully confusing.”
“It is. It’s definitely not for amateurs. There’s as much misinformation about the Daemonolateria as there is about the Thirteen. In short, if he wants to be sure, a magus has to build his own version of the book. That’s what I’m in the process of doing. It can be dangerous. Nelson LeHorn’s copy was fairly complete and very accurate. But it also made him paranoid. A lot of people like us coveted it.”
“‘Like us’?”
“Magicians. Powwow doctors. Priests. Warlocks. Witches. There are more of us than you think. There are different disciplines and social orders, of course. Some of us are loners. Others have their own little groups and clubs. Black Lodge. The Kwan. Things like the O.T.O. and the Starry Wisdom Sect. Teenagers playing at satanism. Senior citizens giving their money to charismatic leaders.”
“I thought Black Lodge was a division of the CIA?”
“That’s what they would like you to believe.”
“All I know is they’re a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Levi said. “My point is, there are a lot of us—most of whom can’t be trusted. LeHorn became convinced that others might try to kill him for his copy of the book, so he hid several of the most important pages, rendering the rest of the book incomplete and, hopefully, worthless. My father told me of the hiding places that he knew of. One of those pages—the one we need to stop this—was hidden in LeHorn’s copy of The Long Lost Friend. He thought it would be extra safe there. And he was right about that.”
“So you need to find his book?”
Levi nodded. “And that’s why I need to speak with Adam Senft. He was the last person to have LeHorn’s book. I need to know where it is now. It might be in his possession, though I doubt it. Senft was certainly dabbling in magic before his wife’s murder, but I don’t think he’d progressed far enough to secrete something like a page from the Daemonolateria on himself while in a psychiatric hospital. Not without it being detected. It’s more likely that the book—and the page—are hidden somewhere on the outside.”
“What if he doesn’t know where it is, or he doesn’t remember? What then?”
“There are other ways to find it. Divining would work, but that takes weeks and we don’t have time. So we’ll just have to make him remember.”
“You said ‘we’ again. I’m not a part of this. Like I told you before, I’m only interested in Senft for my book. That’s why I’m here. God didn’t bring us together. It was just a coincidence.”
Levi sighed. “You don’t believe what I just told you?”
Maria chose her words carefully. “I believe that you believe it. But, look—I don’t believe in God in the first place. I don’t believe that He created the Earth, so why would I believe that He destroyed another universe to do it and that it’s been covered up ever since? And even if I did believe any of that, it’s not God. It’s Allah.”
“I told you before. Allah and God are the same being. Names have power. Those are just two names for the same divinity.”
“So you say. And so have others. But how do I know that?”
“You take it on faith! Just like any other belief.”
She shook her head and sat in silence.
“Maria,” Levi begged, “I can’t do this alone. I…I don’t have anyone else.”
“I’m sorry, Levi. I really am. You seem very nice. But I’m not some occult avenger. I wouldn’t mind interviewing you some more, specifically about powwow and your father and LeHorn. But that’s all.”
“Interviewing me?”
“If you don’t mind, that is?”
“Would it matter if I did?” Smiling, Levi nodded toward her digital voice recorder. “After all, you’ve been secretly taping our conversation since we started.”
“I…” Maria felt her face flush. “I’m sorry. It made me feel better, just in case…”
“Just in case I turned out to be crazy after all?”
“Yeah, if you want the truth.”
“Go ahead and play it back.”
“Why?”
“Humor me.”
Slowly, Maria picked up the recorder, pressed the stop button and then played back their conversation. Except that instead of Levi’s voice, somebody else spoke to her. A different voice boomed from the device. She couldn’t distinguish its sex or age. There was no accent or distinguishing characteristics. It had a hypnotic, musical quality, and flowed like water.
“MARIA. PLEASE HELP.”
Maria’s jaw went slack. Her fingers tightened around the recorder until her knuckles turned white. The voice was replaced with a feint, electronic hiss—white noise. Maria advanced the recording, but there was just more silence.
“How…” She turned off the recorder and looked at Levi, her eyes wide. “How did you…your voice?”
Levi’s smile grew broader.
“Let me guess,” he teased, mimicking her earlier taunt. “You heard the voice of God?”
Maria started to respond, but couldn’t. Her mouth felt dry, her tongue swollen. She tried licking her lips. They seemed puffy. Heavy. Her ears rang. She struggled to sit up straight, but the car’s interior began to spin. Her fingers grasped the seat, but she couldn’t feel the upholstery.